June 26, 2012

The Tough Stuff

Good morning, everyone! Do you scrap the tough stuff, or do you put if off? I am a huge procrastinator when it comes to difficult subjects. I am not good at getting in touch with my sad feelings, but I decided I need to be better about things like this. Today I am sharing a layout that has been seven years in the making.

We were having portraits taken of our two youngest children. Brendan was almost six, and Katie was eight months old. My father-in-law had passed away when I was expecting Katie so it had been just over a year since his death when we were at this photo shoot. The photographer was amazing - she chatted with Brendan and made him feel very comfortable (he was very shy at that age). As she was snapping this, she asked him what he was thinking and he told her he was thinking about how he missed his grandpa, who had died a year ago. The poor lady nearly cried. It was such a random thing for him to say - we hadn't been discussing his grandpa, so this was completely unexpected for all of us. When I got the proofs from her, I knew instantly which photo she had taken when the conversation occurred.

I have held onto it for almost seven years now. I just didn't know what to do with it, or how to capture the moment. I finally decided to just capture it as it truly happened. As I was photographing the layout for this blog post, Brendan walked into the room and saw it. He didn't remember it happening, but he loved the layout because it gave him a piece of his history back, albeit a sad one. He has now lost both of my in-laws, and he still misses them terribly. But if I had made this a happy layout, or an "all about you" layout, he would have lost a key story of his childhood. This was significant. I am so glad I decided to scrap it like I did.

Do you have pictures you are saving because they are just too hard to scrap? Try to sit down and do just one "tough" layout this week. You don't have to do them all at once, but just one every week or so will get you through the pile of photos that are waiting there. As difficult as it is, you'll be glad you jumped in and did it.